Behind the walls of any prison, language takes on a life of its own. This prison slang glossary decodes the unique words and phrases inmates use to navigate daily life behind bars.

Can you translate this?  

I have the keys for my car but my road dogs are disappearing on me. One was 5150 and did the dutch, one left on back door parole, one is a BB filler on his way out. Two are in the hole (one for keistering a cell phone), one is jacked up on brake fluid (he’s got LWOP), one’s a J-cat sent to the ding wing, one is a dump truck who caught the ninja, one was picked up by a meat wagon after getting molly-whooped. The only one left is a fish who’s obsessed with a kitty kitty. And me.  (Scroll down to see our translation.)

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Prison Slang Glossary

115: The document used to charge a prisoner with an infraction.

5150: Prison slang for crazy.

All day: A life sentence.

All day and a night: Life without parole.

Ate up each other: Two sentences running concurrently. When a 10-year sentence and a seven-year sentence run concurrently, the 10-year sentence “ate up” the seven-year sentence.

Back door parole: To die in prison.

Bats: Cigarettes.

Bean slot: The opening in the cell door where food is delivered.

BB filler: Body bag filler. Usually a very ill prisoner.

Bid: Prison sentence.

Big bitch: Death sentence.

Bindle: A small package containing tobacco or drugs.

Blues: Prison slang for prison clothes.

Bonaroo: Brand new prison clothes.

Boneyard visit: Conjugal visit without kids.

Brake fluid: Psychiatric meds.

Brogan: The state-issued work boots that inmates wear.

Brownies: People who work in the kitchen.

Bucky or celly: Cellmate.

Buffing: Working out on the exercise bars with water, sandbags, and calisthenics.

Bug: A prison staff member who can’t be trusted.

Bullet: A one-year sentence.

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Burner: Cell phone.

Burpee: An exercise involving a squat, a pushup, and leg lifts.

Cadillac: Coffee with cream and sugar. Also refers to an inmate’s bunk.

Cadillac job: A desirable work assignment.

Cage: Your cell, aka hole in the wall, house, buck.

Car: The group that one associates with while in prison (determined by gang affiliation or some other commonality like age, race, sexual identity, etc.).

Catch the cut: What inmates say to one another when they want to fight each other, preferably in a blind spot where it’s out of sight from the camera.

Catch the wall: What prison staff say when they rush in for a shakedown (i.e., hands against the wall and spread your legs).

Catch a ride: To get high with a friend’s drugs.

Caught letters: Prison slang for a life sentence.

Cell warrior: An inmate who acts tough when locked in his cell, but is a coward face-to-face.

Catching the chain: When an inmate is leaving.

Chatted out:  Someone who has gone crazy.

Choke sandwich:  A peanut butter sandwich with no jelly.

Chow: Dinner.

C.O.: Correctional officer.

Cowboy: A new correctional officer.

Dime: 10-year sentence.

Ding wing: A prison’s psychiatric unit.

Dinner and a show: While inmates eat glop in the chow hall (the dinner), they watch other inmates fight and then get pepper-sprayed by the guards (the show).

Doing the dutch: Prison slang for committing suicide.

Draft: Charging another inmate to live there (extortion).

Dry snitching: Ratting out another inmate by talking loudly about his bad behavior in front of guards. Giving information without naming names.

Duck: A correctional officer who’s seen as gullible, easily manipulated, or bribed to smuggle in contraband. Also refers to a correctional officer who reveals personal information about other prison staff to inmates. Sometimes refers to a doctor.

Dump truck: Fat, lazy slob.

Fam bam:  A conjugal visit with children—versus the child-free “boneyard” conjugal visit.

Fiend: A drug addict.

Fish: A new inmate who’s never been in prison before.

Fresh meat: A batch of new inmates.

Gangsta: An inmate with AIDS (i.e., someone who will “die slow”).

Get hit: To catch a longer sentence from the parole board.

Getting buzzed: Getting tattooed.

Grapes: 411, information, gossip.

Green light:  The go-ahead to kill a person or gang affiliate on sight.

Gunline: What inmates shout out to let other inmates know that they’re masturbating and requesting to not be disturbed.

Has the keys:  The person who controls or calls the shots for a group or gang.

Hoe check: Group beating given to a prisoner to see if he’ll stand up for himself.

Hole: Prison slang for solitary confinement.

Hoop: To hide contraband in a body cavity.

Hot medders: People who take over-the-counter medication.

Hot one: A murder charge.

Hot water:  An officer is walking the tier. A warning to cease inappropriate behavior.

House: Your cell.

Hug-a-thug: A corrections officer who treats prisoners with respect, which is seen as a sign of weakness to other COs.

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J-Cat: Someone with mental issues. A crazy or foolish person.

Jody: A man sleeping with a prisoner’s wife/girlfriend on the outside.

Jose or josing: To help someone pass the time. When someone from the outside is writing letters, sending pictures, putting money on inmates’ books, adding money for phone time, or coming to visit said inmate, they are a jose.

June bug: A prisoner considered to be a slave to others.

Juvenile-in-training (J.I.T.): A younger person who acts like a punk. Causing trouble for the sake of causing trouble. Has become a popular slang term used in the deep south even outside the walls.

Kite: A contraband note written on a small piece of paper and passed to others through underground methods.

Keister: To hide contraband in one’s rectum.

Kesue: Prison slang for a knife.

Kitty kitty: Female correctional officer.

Lame duck: A vulnerable inmate standing alone in the prison yard, easy to prey on.

Life jolt: A life sentence.

LWOP: Life without the possibility of parole.

Lockdown: When some kind of disturbance in prison causes guards to lock all inmates in their cells, indefinitely, until calm is restored. Often involves a shakedown.

Lock-in-a-sock: A weapon created from putting a combination lock inside a sock and swinging it.

Mando: Mandatory.

Meat wagon: A hospital ambulance.

Mojiggetty: Mojo (synthetic marijuana).

Moley (moo-lee): Jailhouse-made dessert.

Molly-whop: To kick someone’s ass in a fight or to get your ass kicked in a fight.

Money on books: An inmate’s account that pays for commissary.

Monkey mouth: A prisoner who goes on and on about nothing.

Monster: HIV, aka the Ninja.

Mud: Coffee.

Mudd: An inmate’s ass.

Netted up: Someone who goes crazy.

New booties: Inmates with first-time conviction.

Newjacks: New, inexperienced COs.

Nickel: Prison slang for a five-year sentence.

Ninja: HIV/AIDS. Sometimes used for STDs in general.

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On the line: Has many meanings, but usually means something is for sale.

O.G.: Original gangster. A label of respect given to older inmates who have been in the prison system a long time.

P.C.: Protective custody. A category of solitary confinement where the inmate needs protection from other inmates.

Permanent pocket: The anus.

Playing on ass: Prison slang for gambling without money.

Porcelain termite: A prisoner who busts up the toilet/sink in a cell when they get upset.

Prison pocket: The anus (and sometimes, vagina).

Prison safe: The safest place to keep drugs, shanks, dice, etc. during cell inspections and transfers. See prison pocket.

Prison wolf: A heterosexual prisoner who engages in sex with men while incarcerated.

Programmer: An inmate who spends most of his time attending classes and improving himself. The nerds of prison.

Pruno: A homemade alcohol made from fruit, bread, and anything with sugar (e.g., jelly, cookie cream, sodas, tootsie rolls) and left to rot under a bunk for three days. No one drinks it for the taste.

Pumpkins: Prison slang for new inmates.

Punk: Derogatory for a transsexual or homosexual, or any weak individual.

Race traitor: Someone who socializes outside of their race group.

Ratched: A nurse.

Real talk: Synonym for “seriously” or “for real.” Used to let others know that you’re talking honestly and sincerely, and that what you’re expressing isn’t a joke. Also used to affirm that what others are saying is true.

Rec: Recreation. The one hour a day you’re allowed outside in the yard.

Ride leg: To suck up to staff to get favors.

Road dogs: Prisoners who walk the track together during rec. Also, close friends.

Roll up your window: A request to stop eavesdropping on another inmate’s conversation, especially to not comment on the conversation uninvited.

Running epps: When inmates tell each other stories from when they were free.

Running wild: When an inmate receives two or more consecutive sentences.

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S to life:  A basketball game without rules.

Sancho: The person your wife or girlfriend is with on the outside.

Sex play: To verbally or physically communicate in a sexual manner.

Shakedown: When prison guards tear apart inmates’ cells looking for contraband.

Shit on a single: A breakfast meal that has fake ground beef with watered-down gravy.

Shiv: Prison slang for a homemade knife.

S.I.S.: Special Investigative Service. The CIA of prison guards who investigate incidents in prison.

Skittles: Over-the-counter medications.

Spider monkey: Someone doing hard time.

Spread: A gourmet prison meal. Often used to describe big potluck meals put together for a group of inmates by a designated cook or two. Includes rice, ramen soups, fish, chili, and tortilla chips.

Strapped: When someone is carrying a weapon.

Stress box: A pay phone booth.

Stinger: A rigged heating element created out of metal, designed to get water to boil. Inmates will connect two wires from any source (TV plugs, headphones, or even handmade wire from aluminum foil) to any two separate metal objects, usually metal plates. By connecting the two wires to the outlet and dropping the stinger in the water, the AC current will pass through the water, heating it up.

Sucker ducker:  Someone who stays away from people who cause trouble.

Survival kit: A pillowcase or sheet rolled up with a sheet, blanket, pillowcase, two pairs of socks, two underwear, two t-shirts, and a little bag with one hotel bar soap, one mini toothpaste, a mini pencil, a shaving razor, cup, and spoon.

Take flight: To attack someone using fists.

Time to feed the warden: You have to go to the bathroom. “If the warden is going to feed us crappy food, we’re going to feed it back to him—digested.”

Torpedo: Prison gangs are kind of like submarines. You have the captain, the shot caller, and his faithful enforcer, the torpedo.

Vampire: Someone who draws blood.

Vic or Vik: A victim or someone who’s about to be victimized. A convict who’s a repeat offender and has spent most of their life in prison.

Viking: Someone who is extremely lazy and unwilling to keep their living space or themselves clean.

Violators: Repeat offenders with two or more times in prison.

Wakeup: Prison slang for coffee.

Wham whams: Cookies and candies.

Zoom zooms:  Cookies and candies.

Now here’s the translation of the first paragraph!

I have the keys for my car but my road dogs are disappearing on me. One was 5150 and did the dutch, one left on back door parole, one is a BB filler on his way out. Two are in the hole (one for keistering a cell phone), one is jacked up on brake fluid (he’s got LWOP), one’s a J-cat sent to the ding wing, one is a dump truck who caught the ninja, one was picked up by a meat wagon after getting molly-whooped. The only one left is a fish who’s obsessed with a kitty kitty. And me.

I’m the leader of the group/gang I hang out with, but my buddies are disappearing on me. One went nuts and committed suicide, one died in prison, one is very ill and dying. Two are in solitary confinement (one for hiding a cell phone in his ass), one is jacked up on psychiatric medication (he has life without parole), one is a crazy fool who was sent to the psych unit, one is a lazy slob who got HIV/AIDS, one was taken away in an ambulance after getting beaten up. The only one left is a new first-time offender who’s obsessed with a female prison guard. And me.

Please send us any prison slang words we’ve left out! Include a definition and the state or prison where you heard it. Once we’ve verified their prevalence, we’ll add them to the list, and we’ll credit you! We’ll keep adding to this list, which we’ve built with help from our Prison Writers, slang dictionaries, and correctional officers’ websites.